


Lazarus

by Lacerta26



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Flirting, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:55:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23051323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacerta26/pseuds/Lacerta26
Summary: Eggsy is in deep cover when Harry comes back from the dead.Absence makes the heart grow fonder his gran used to say but Harry hasn’t just been absent. For the relatively short time they spent together during Eggsy’s training Harry managed to make himself so integral to Eggsy's sense of himself, who he could be. In death he’s only become more of a deified figure, along with Eggsy’s father, a man who he can’t disappoint, a man who he never really got to know.It was painful, grieving for Harry but safe too, keeping him on that pedestal not acknowledging the attraction that was there between them, the desire, in so many ways a terrible idea but undeniable, hopeful. Eggsy spent so long being angry at Harry for leaving him with the unfinished business of making him into a Kingsman, a gentleman, for taking away that hope, what is he supposed to do with the pain of it now?
Relationships: Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin
Comments: 18
Kudos: 142





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Your classic getting together post V-Day, with a number of bumps along the road, sort of fic. Also, the longest fic I've ever written and I'm just posting the whole thing all at once to get it out of my brain - enjoy!
> 
> Comments and kudos always a delight, let me know what you think!

Eggsy is in deep cover when Harry comes back from the dead. Someone, somehow, manages to leave a note in one of the drop points he’s been using; a copy of Tennyson’s Sir Galahad, across the top of which, in handwriting he doesn’t recognize, are the words ‘The King is Dead, Long Live the King’, folded up and tucked between the leather seats in an upmarket Tokyo karaoke bar. 

Eggsy runs his fingers between the cushions out of habit, every time he comes here with corrupt politicians, drug smugglers, people traffickers; although nothing has been left for him in two months. He freezes when his fingertips hit the paper, startled out of the practiced slouch he’s fallen into. He glances round but everyone is pissed, distracted by the girls they’ve bought and the off-key singing. The room is dark, lit by rotating fluorescent light. Eggsy can palm the note casually, sidle to the bathroom. 

He goes for a piss, sits on the seat while the toilet tells beeps at him, unrolls the note and nearly laughs out loud. His whole body going hot then cold with the certainty of its meaning before doubt sets in. This must be Merlin’s idea of a joke. Kingsman has been functioning without an Arthur for four months since V-Day. Merlin has been doing the work but it’s a strain; too many of the remaining agents out in the field, tidying up the fallout from the mess Valentine had so kindly created. Eggsy’s been in Japan for months gathering intel at the highest level of a government gone corrupt. He’s not heard from HQ in weeks and before that it was hardly elucidating communication. Keep going, stay undercover, leave any intel at the agreed place and now this. It can only mean one thing. Kingsman has appointed a new Arthur, and more than that, Harry is alive. 

Merlin had offered Eggsy Galahad but he couldn’t accept it. That title would always be Harry’s. He did think briefly about how awful it would be to have to refer to a new recruit by Harry’s handle but by unspoken agreement Merlin had retired the name; added Morgana and Guinevere to the roster of agents because, “it’s about time we had some lasses’ names in the field, eh lad?” 

So, there can only be one Galahad and only one successor to Arthur’s seat. But it can’t be. He saw it. Sat in Harry’s office, he saw Harry shot in the head, hit the hot Kentucky tarmac, his glasses feed transmitting the grey sky going slowly dark for hours. 

They hadn’t even been able to retrieve his body lost as it was to the hasty clean-up effort; Merlin was in a tizz for days about the amount of kit Harry had on him to cover the deep well of grief he felt at his friend’s death. Eggsy had finally marched into his office with a bottle of scotch and they had got abominably pissed, cried and cried together and never spoken of it again. 

Eggsy looks down at the paper, speckled with tears he hadn’t even realised he was crying, his hands are shaking. He needs to pull himself together, find out if his orders have changed. He can’t blow his cover or he’ll end up dead somewhere in a Tokyo suburb; another suicide or a murder no-one has the resources to solve. Hell, they could probably shoot him in the middle of Harajuku and no-one would bat an eye.

He slips out of the bar and heads back to his tiny apartment. He won’t be missed for a night and he can always say he took a girl home. When he gets in he turns the bathroom light on, leaves his sad little Aloe Vera plant in the window; the agreed signal for awaiting instructions. If someone from Kingsman is in Tokyo they’ll make contact within 24 hours. 

He cracks open a beer and chain smokes his way through half a pack of cigarettes just staring at the walls before he realises he’s likely to die of lung cancer before he gets an answer. 

All his dreams that night are of Harry. Harry smiling, laying a hand on Eggsy’s shoulder, saying “I see a young man with potential”, Harry’s eyes going soft and full of promise as he showed Eggsy how to make a martini for the first time. Harry, pure elegance and destructive grace as he ploughed through a church full of people before falling, looking down the barrel of Valentine’s gun. Eggsy wakes sweating and shaking. His face is wet with tears and his dick half hard; grief and desire, all the things left unsaid between them turning him inside out. He stumbles to the bathroom, light still on, vomits until his stomach is empty. The next day he ignores his phone, lies in bed all day and frets that he won’t hear from Kingsman, frets that he will. 

He still has a month and a half left until the diplomatic visit that’s providing his cover comes to an end. A month and a half and twenty hours on a plane before he can get home. To Harry.

*

Two days later he stands at a payphone in Shibuya, ‘Merlin. Is it - ?’ he can’t say it, can’t put form to Harry’s name in his mouth, in case he’s wrong. He shouldn’t be talking to Merlin at all, they’ve routed this call through so many relays no one will be able to trace it but still, it’s a risk; everything about Eggsy-as-Kingsman is a risk these days. Whoever has eyes on him here must have noticed how frayed he is at the edges, how close he is to letting the mask slip, to sanction a call to HQ. He didn’t even pass the last test and Harry dying took everything out of him and now this.

The silence from the other end of the line is deafening before he hears Merlin, without a trace of emotion, say, ‘yes, Harry is still alive.’ 

‘Fuck,’ Eggsy can feel his heart beating so hard he’s sure you can see it hrough the skin of his chest, pushing at his ribs, up the back of his throat. 

‘I need you to be calm for me. Your mission is coming to a close and we need to get you out without incident. We can’t send a Kingsman jet so you’ll have to fly with a commercial airline. It’ll be a bit slower but it’ll get you home safer. Eggsy, do you hear me?’

‘Yeah, yes. I hear you.

‘Harry is fine,’ Merlin answers the question he can’t ask, ‘he’s recovering, not quite his old self yet but he’ll get there. You can help him when you get back.’

‘Sure.’

‘Eggsy, head in the game, ok? I won’t be able to talk to you again, get through it, get yourself home. It’s only a month. you‘ll be fine.’

‘Right, of course, thanks Merlin.’

Merlin doesn’t say anything but he stays on the line for a beat, comforting silence that helps Eggsy ground himself until he’s the one hanging up the phone. He ducks into a random Seven-Eleven for something to distract himself, to practice his piss-poor Japanese and not think about the reality he’s faced with. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder his gran used to say but Harry hasn’t just been absent; for the relatively short time they spent together during Eggsy’s training Harry managed to make himself so integral to Eggsy's sense of himself, who he could be. In death he’s only become more of a deified figure, along with Eggsy’s father, a man who he can’t disappoint, a man who he never really got to know.

It was painful, grieving for Harry but safe too, keeping him on that pedestal not acknowledging the attraction that was there between them, the desire, in so many ways a terrible idea but undeniable, hopeful. Eggsy spent so long being angry at Harry for leaving him with the unfinished business of making him into a Kingsman, a gentleman, for taking away that hope, what is he supposed to do with the pain of it now?


	2. Chapter 2

Harry found dying a deeply inconvenient experience. His gunshot wound to the head, while dramatic and prone to creating rather a lot of blood, had really only been a glancing blow, thanks to Valentine’s aversion to violence. Harry had lost consciousness on the uncomfortable asphalt of the church forecourt and no one had bothered to check for a pulse. When he comes to in Harrison Memorial Hospital, Kentucky, several months later it was a relief and an absolute fucking nightmare. He had lost some peripheral vision in his left eye but was otherwise mercifully intact and ready to stage a jailbreak within the first thirty minutes he was back on this mortal coil. His nurse, who had cheerfully told him she’d killed six people before Valentine’s signal was switched off, was having none of it and even only a touch of a coma gets you extra coddling. 

He had no means of contacting Kingsman and no clear idea of how best to get back to England, all civilian flights were still grounded. He had tried ringing the various emergency numbers all agents memorise to no avail and he’d even called the shop but it just rang out endlessly as he propped himself against the pay phone and got dirty looks from his fellow patients. The 24/7 news broadcasts blaring from the TVs in every room indicate the world was slowly attempting to get back on its feet; governments and royalty scraping themselves into some semblance of their former power pretty damn quick. 

Harry’s recovery is far less swift; his initial elation at being alive quickly turns sour when it becomes clear that the damage his head injury has wrought won’t be so easily shaken off. He’s plagued with headaches and has a slight tremor in his left hand, he’s prone to exhaustion, memory loss and random bouts of irritability; although this last he suspects is due to his endless confinement and inability to get in touch with Kingsman, if they even still exist. He wants to know who’s still alive, desperate for news of Merlin and Percival, Roxanne. Hell, he’d even take a visit from Chester King at this point. Mostly, he wants to know what’s happened to Eggsy. 

*

A few months after he regains consciousness, while the staff work out what the hell they’re supposed to do with so many critically injured patients in a far less ordered world, Christopher finally answers the phone at the shop, ‘Kingsman Tailors, how may I help you?’

Harry is so overcome with relief at the sound of a familiar voice, he almost forgets his protocol, stutters out, ‘oxfords not brogues,’ and then into the stunned silence on the other end of line, ‘Christopher, it’s Galahad.’

Pure professionalism restored, Christopher says, ‘Good to hear from you, Sir. Do you have a suit in need of repair?’

‘Yes, just some minor wear and tear. Would you be able to arrange a collection?’

‘Of course, sir. I’ll just have to transfer you to our accounts department to organise payment.’

The line is quiet for a long time and Harry briefly wonders whether he’s conjured the whole exchange out of sheer desperation but then he hears the click on to a secured line, a breath for courage at the other end and Merlin’s voice, comfort and irritation both, says, ‘Harry?’ like he can’t believe it either.

‘Hello, Merlin. Have you all forgotten how to answer a bloody phone?’

‘We’ve been busy. Fuck. You were shot.’

‘Yes, not fatally I’m pleased to report.’

‘I’m so sorry, Harry. By the time we could get someone out to Kentucky you were gone, we couldn’t find a trace of you so we assumed...’

Harry spares Merlin finishing that thought, ‘I was admitted as a John Doe to Harrison Memorial. I’ve been here for months, in a coma for two. You need to get me out Merlin, it’s driving me insane.’ 

Merlin snorts, ‘I can imagine. How injured are you, Harry? Truthfully. Are you well enough to fly?’

Harry lists his various ailments, expected length of recovery; there’s no point downplaying anything, Merlin will have the Kingsman medical team on him as soon as he touches down in dear old England. 

‘I’ll fudge the paperwork from this end. Get yourself discharged and we’ll have a plane ready for you tomorrow afternoon. Do you still have your glasses?’

‘I do. They’re completely fucked though.’

Merlin tsks in annoyance, ‘can you get yourself a phone? A burner’ll do,’ he gives Harry a number to call, ‘once you’ve got a phone, call this number and we’ll send you through all the details.’

‘Thank you, Merlin. How is,’ he pauses, not sure how much of himself to reveal, everything raw and stinging. The restless certainty that he’ll see Eggsy soon suddenly feeling like a greater weight than the months he’s already spent waiting, ‘everyone?’ he finishes lamely. 

‘We’ll catch up when you’re back, Harry. It could have been worse. Chester's dead. We need a new Arthur and you’d be a perfect fit for it,’ says Merlin, gently obfuscating. 

‘I’m a field agent,’ Harry says, ‘I’m not suited for desk work.’

‘Perhaps just while you’re recovering, then?’ 

Harry goes to protest but a sharp voice at his back interrupts him, ‘Mr Devere? Other patients need to use the phone.’

‘Get me out of here, Merlin, or I won’t be responsible for what happens to Nurse Ratchett.’

‘A shot to the head hasn’t made you any more accomodating, then,’ says Merlin, something of his own self back in his voice, ‘see you soon, Harry.’

*

Harry arrives at Kingsman HQ at three in the morning two days later, the jet taxiing down the runway agonisingly slowly. He had at least been allowed to sit on the plane instead of having to suffer the indignity of lying down the whole journey across the Atlantic but now he is exhausted, a dull throb behind his bad eye and pain spidering across his temple. The nurse Kingsman had sent to accompany him from Kentucky rests his hand on Harry’s shoulder, ‘up you get then,’ and Harry flinches away, tired of being treated like a child, his fighter’s instincts still at the surface but suppressed by his convalescence. The nurse doesn’t try to help him out of the plane or down the steps. 

Harry can see in the gloom of the hanger, three figures in the distance, two white-coated and disturbingly reminiscent of being carted off to hospital for one’s own good and between them Merlin. A sob, unexpected and hastily repressed, rises up in Harry’s throat and he’s hurrying across the tarmac to reach his old friend. 

‘Shit, Harry,’ says Merlin when he’s in ear shot, no attempt at professionalism, gripping Harry’s hand and pulling him into an awkward one armed hug. They have never had a demonstrative friendship despite having known each other for near on 25 years but the sheer emotion in Merlin’s voice and the swooping sensation of relief in Harry’s own stomach makes him return the hug instinctually. The first words out of his mouth, however, betray him instantly, months of lying in a Kentucky hospital dulling his wits, ‘Eggsy, is he…’ Merlin can’t keep the exasperated fondness out of his voice even as he attempts to look wounded by this regulation to second place in Harry’s affections. 

‘Deep cover, Harry, in Tokyo. We can’t say when he’ll be home just yet. He’s been contacted. He knows you’re alive.’

Harry frowns, ‘was that wise?’ 

Part of him hopes Eggsy will abandon the mission, use up a few aliases and rush home to him but he knows Eggsy’s better than that and it’s certainly not what Harry deserves. 

The disappointment of everything left unsaid and unacknowledged at his house before Eggsy’s last task still hangs heavy on his shoulders. He’d tried to be strong, sensible. Ignored the thrum of his own blood and the heat of Eggsy’s gaze as they made martinis, talked about Eggsy’s father and Kingsman in Harry’s early days as Galahad. The sway of Eggsy’s body towards his, the abortive step forward on the landing as they headed to bed. Harry’s eyes had flicked down to Eggsy’s mouth for a beat too long and he’d had to turn abruptly away, gesturing to the guest room. The crushed look on Eggsy’s face had almost been enough to let the last of his resolve crumble but he had felt in that moment that they had all the time in the world. Eggsy would become Lancelot and, Kingsman be damned, they could explore the flickering tension between them with no risk to Eggsy’s standing in the competition. He had then, of course, gone off to Kentucky to get shot in the head, leaving on the heels of an argument he hadn’t really meant. 

‘The lad knows his orders. He’s come on leaps and bounds. He won’t jeopardise a mission,’ says Merlin, the implication that Harry is overstating his own importance goes unsaid.

‘Time to get you to medical,’ continues Merlin and Harry sways with fatigue, the effort of standing for so long rounding up on him suddenly, radiating from his hairline downwards. One of the white-coated men steps forward with a wheelchair Harry had not previously noticed, sinking into it gratefully in spite of himself. 

‘We’ll have to keep you here for a while for observation before you can convalesce at home,’ Merlin is saying to him and even though he’s drained from the short walk from the plane Harry still finds it in himself to say, ‘I’ve been convalescing for months, I’d much rather start recovering. I thought you brought me home to start work.’

Merlin ignores his petulant tone, ‘yes, well, you pay attention to the doctors and you may well be strong enough to take on Arthur and finish whatever you and Eggsy started by the time he gets back.’

‘I can’t think what you mean.’

Merlin just snorts not following when they begin wheeling Harry away. He almost doesn’t register the, ‘be careful, Harry,’ until he’s tucked into a narrow hospital bed finally able to drift off, thoughts of Eggsy still racing round his head and realises he’s in rather deeper than he thought. 

*

Harry is at least out of bed, a month or so later, sat in one of the armchairs added to the Kingsman hospital suites to make them slightly less institutional, when Eggsy slams into his room, breathing hard as if he has run all the way here. Merlin sweeps into the room behind him face wary as if he isn’t sure what he’d be walking in on; a punch-up or some serious PDA. 

‘You’re alive, then,’ says Eggsy dumbly when he reaches Harry, hand jerking by his side as if he wants to reach out to touch, just to make sure. 

‘Yes,’ replies Harry, although that much is obvious. 

‘Eggsy, you should let Harry get his rest, it’s late,’ says Merlin but Harry gets up out of the armchair with only slightly more difficulty than it took to get into it. 

‘It’s fine, Merlin, could you give us a moment,’ Merlin looks for all the world like he desperately wants to argue but he can clearly see it’s a lost cause. 

‘A few minutes then,’ he says lamely, ‘then we need to get you checked out too, lad. Debrief properly.’ 

Harry takes Eggsy in fully then. His suit is a state, dark smudges under his eyes, a split lip, his knuckles are bruised. He looks so young and Harry feels a twist of guilt for bringing him into this life, for putting him in danger, for wanting him so much that he’ll keep doing just that. He’s still as beautiful as when Harry last saw him, almost eight months ago and he feels a swell of vindication that the first thing Eggsy did on getting home was come running to see him. Eggsy notices him looking, stretches out a hand, ‘you should see the other guy.’ 

Harry steps forward to take Eggsy’s hand, gentle fingers over the purpling bruises, ‘thank you, Merlin,’ he says pointedly and Merlin finally leaves the room with a warning glare at both of them. 

‘You’re ok?’ asks Eggsy, eyes skating over Harry’s face, always returning to his red-shot eye, the pale pink scars running from his temple to his hairline. The stitches only came out last week and he can still feel the skin tightening when he smiles. He hasn’t been smiling much. 

Eggsy puts his hand on Harry’s chest, just over his heart, a firm, warm weight, as if he wants to confirm it is indeed beating. There are tears in his clear, green eyes but he looks furious. 

‘Oh, Eggsy, I’m sorry,’ he isn’t sure what he’s apologising for first, the argument, leaving, getting shot, dying, not dying and those two words don’t seem to be enough. He gestures to the chairs, ‘do you want to sit down?’ He almost wishes he hadn’t sent Merlin away. His physio is going well but he absolutely could not take Eggsy in a fight right now. 

‘Not really,’ says Eggsy. He balls his hand into a fist but in Harry’s shirt rather than flying at his face so that’s something and the seconds tick by as they regard each other warily. Harry feels untethered, the certainty he used to feel about Eggsy, who they could have been to each other if only he stopped resisting seem so tenuous now with Eggsy glaring at him, tears running down his face. 

Eggsy takes a big juddering sniff, wipes his nose on the hand not currently clutching at Harry’s shirt. His eyes dart around the room and back to Harry, ‘fuck it,’ he says, smiles in a way that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and pulls Harry in for a kiss, deep and filthy. Harry briefly loses equilibrium, literally and metaphorically, as he’s pulled off balance by Eggsy going up on his tiptoes to wrap his arms around Harry’s neck, teeth nipping at his lower lip. The coppery tang of blood on his tongue. Fuck it indeed. Harry does feel duty bound to mention, ‘there are cameras monitoring this room, you know.’ 

‘I don’t give a shit, Harry,’ says Eggsy, pressing their hips together, shoving his tongue into Harry’s mouth and it should be awful, all sloppy desperation and too much teeth but all of Harry’s blood rushes south and if he wasn’t lighted headed before he is now. 

Eggsy’s face is still wet with tears and he’s making needy little noises in his throat as he scrabbles at Harry’s clothes, pyjamas really, and Harry just lets him. Holds him close and opens up for teeth and tongue and fingers pressed everywhere Eggsy can reach. He lets Eggsy push him backwards towards the bed, gently tip him on to it, mindful of Harry’s recovery. A hospital room is not the ideal place for a tryst; the bed too narrow, the light in the room far too bright but Harry has Eggsy warm and real in his arms, can’t tear himself away from this boy he’s been yearning to get back to for months. 

Eggsy gets up on the bed, straddling Harry, their faces close, the heat between them and the slow roll of Eggsy’s hips unbearable, ‘is this OK harry? I want to – can I –‘ 

‘Yes, Eggsy, anything you want.’ 

Eggsy smiles sweetly and kisses him deeply. Now he has permission it seems he can’t hold himself back, pulling at the tie of Harry’s dressing gown, rucking up Harry’s shirt revealing the network of scars, new bruises, the softening of Harry’s muscles after months of recovery. Harry wants to crawl away, hide, until he can stand before Eggsy without fatigue, touch him without shaking, look at him with two clear eyes. But Eggsy is looking at him with such unabashed hunger Harry can’t deny him, leans up to shove Eggsy’s suit jacket to the floor, starts pulling at his shirt until the buttons pop and scatter to the floor, shifts his hips up to undo Eggsy’s trousers while he pulls him back down to nip at his collarbones, chest, shoulders with his teeth. 

They kiss again with renewed desperation, Harry can feel Eggsy’s dick, hard, pressed against his own, the insistent roll of their hips in the damp space between them. Eggsy’s hands are in Harry’s hair, scraping his nails on Harry’s scalp, pulling him closer as if he wants to climb into Harry’s mouth. Harry gets a hand between them, pushing his pyjama trousers round his thighs, his other hand squeezing Eggsy’s arse urging them closer so they can rock together into the tight hold of Harry’s fist. 

Eggsy’s eyes are closed, his breath coming in slow pants that might be murmurs of, ‘Harry, Harry, Harry,’ as he fists his hands in Harry’s shirt again, jerks his hips so his cock slides perfectly against Harry’s, messy and wet, the noise obscenely loud in the quiet of the room. Harry moves his hand faster, whispers into Eggsy’s skin, ‘come for me, darling, come on, it’s OK, come for me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ and Eggsy comes, body jerking and breathing harshly, eyes screwed shut. In the sudden wet heat between them Harry’s hand slips easier, quicker and he’s coming too, gasping into the marks he's bitten into Eggsy’s skin. 

They lie side by side in silence on the tiny bed, clothes rumpled and sticky, Eggsy’s head tucked under Harry’s chin, until the lights go out, automatic, at 10pm. Harry climbs out of bed to find Eggsy has fallen asleep, a frown tugging his mouth down, curled in on himself as if he's in pain. 

In the bathroom Harry finds fresh pyjamas, straightens himself up and wets a cloth to bring to Eggsy. He gently cleans the come off Eggsy’s belly, tidies up his clothes. Eggsy must be very deeply asleep or he’s pretending to be because he doesn’t move through Harry’s ministrations until Harry climbs back into the bed and Eggsy folds himself into Harry’s body. Harry lies there staring at the ceiling for a long time wondering of all the good and bad, right and wrong he’s done in his life if this was a mistake or the best decision he’s ever made.


	3. Chapter 3

Eggsy wakes up with a sudden flush of panic, in an unknown room, the familiar hum of his air conditioning unit absent, no sodium glow through the windows – there are no windows – and the warmth of another body beside him. 

Harry. Harry is still alive. 

They’re spooned together on Harry’s narrow bed, Harry’s arms wrapped around him, holding him close. Eggsy vaguely remembers Harry cleaning him up and tucking him in last night while he’d pretended to sleep. Shit. He’d marched in here straight off his flight from Tokyo for what? A fight? To Talk? Sex? He hadn’t planned for anything, there were so many things he’d wanted to say and yet, in the moment, it felt like the only thing to do was press himself against Harry and prove they were both very much alive. 

He heaves himself out of bed, looks down at Harry, soft in sleep, soft and hurt but recovering. This is not the man who found Eggsy, brought him to Kingsman. He’s not the man who built Eggsy up in his own image only to be crushed with disappointment when Eggsy didn’t live up to expectations. Couldn’t live up to them. This is not the man who said, ‘I’ll sort this mess out when I get back,’ I’ll sort you out, with such self-assurance or wasted an entire congregation with his bare hands, was shot in the head and walked away. Harry wasn’t dead but he wasn’t unscathed either. Eggsy couldn’t see how all the shattered bits of their lives would fit back together now and for the first time in a long time Eggsy decides to run away. It’s not like running from Dean and his goons, walking away from the Marines, giving up on his life or his future, being lazy or scared. It’s so much more than that. He had thought he needed Harry so much it hurt to not have him but Harry had given in so easily, given Eggsy what he wanted so readily, in the end, and Eggsy had just let himself take. Harry needed forgiveness, Harry needed him more than he ever had before and Eggsy found himself wanting in every conceivable way. He had never been good enough for Harry, he certainly wasn’t good enough now. Harry had made Eggsy into a better man but he had never quite finished the job.

He gathers his clothes, slips out of the room without a backwards glance. Part way down the corridor Merlin steps out of a doorway, his face so full of concern it makes Eggsy feel sick. It’s not a look he’s used to seeing on Merlin’s face; pity. 

‘I didn’t watch, lad, the recording from this evening has been destroyed.’

Eggsy can’t contain the gratitude he feels at that, his face crumpling, hot behind the eyes but no tears come, he opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Everything he feels sounds so callous even in his own head. He had grieved for Harry, accepted he was gone even as it threatened to destroy him, had to carry on in a world with a huge gaping hole in it. So, he puts on the mask, like Harry taught him, the mask that is Harry, over all of Eggsy’s rough edges and says, ‘we can debrief in the morning, Merlin.’

Merlin nods, frowning, but lets him pass, and then, a hand on his elbow, ‘you can’t walk away from this Eggsy,’ he means, you can’t walk away from Harry. 

Eggsy just shakes him off, ‘I’ve had a long day Merlin, I need to get home.’ 

He does his best to saunter away, towards the bullet train, even as every cell in his body seems on the verge of collapsing. 

Except, he realises, stepping out of the shop on to Savile Row, chilly in the early morning, home, in months before he went to Japan, had been Harry’s house. Sleeping in Harry’s spare bed and eating at Harry’s dining room table, watching TV on Harry’s sofa, smoking cigarette after cigarette on Harry’s little balcony and resisting the urge to wank in Harry’s bed or fall apart in Harry’s office. He knows Harry wouldn’t mind, knows Harry won’t be there but somehow it feels wrong, now, an invasion of privacy. A cab slides up, probably summoned by Merlin, and Eggsy gives his mum’s address, a reflex he didn’t know he had, sinks into the seats and closes his eyes, tries to block out the roaring in his ears and the endless beating of his heart. 

*

The house Kingsman gave to Michelle, had given to him, Eggsy supposes, except he's never really lived in it, is in Islington, three bedrooms, a dining room separate from the kitchen, a garden. A home for Daisy and a safe place for his mum away from their old life, a perk of being a Kingsman agent. He lets himself in as quietly as he can, through the back door into the kitchen, the clock on the oven accusingly telling him it's ten past three in the morning. He sits on a stool and lets his head rest on the cold marble of the countertop.

‘Eggsy?’ a light clicks on in the hallway and Michelle is stepping into the kitchen, in her dressing gown, frowning. 

‘Sorry mum I didn’t mean to wake you,’ his voice cracking as he looks at her.

‘Eggsy, babes, what’s happened? Is it Roxy? Merlin?’ says Michelle, gathering him into a hug. 

There had been no point trying to pretend to his mum he was actually a tailor, especially after V-Day, but he tries to keep the worst from her. He doesn’t want her to be too worried about him and the fewer details she knows the better. She seemed happy enough with this arrangement, had come to Harry’s funeral, small as it was and asked no questions. So many people had died during V-Day, it wasn’t the done thing to ask how. 

‘It’s Harry, mum, he’s not dead, he’s come back,’ he whispers into her chest and saying it out loud to someone not so mired in the terrible life they lead makes it seem all the more real. 

She still looks at him like he might have done mad, hides it quickly, says tentatively, ‘but that’s a good thing ain’t it babes?’ 

He can see in her eyes the fear that never quite goes away. He does this to her, every time he leaves on a new mission and the guilt is unbearable, even now he’s back, sitting in her kitchen snivelling like a child.

‘I dunno, mum. He’s different. I thought I’d lost him and now he’s back I dunno how to be around him or how to help him.’

‘You love him,’ she says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He opens his mouth to protest but she carries on, ‘if someone told me I could have your dad back I’d do anything to make it happen.

‘Mum, me and Harry, it’s…’ he tries, this is not the way he necessarily expected to broach the subject of him and Harry to her, the ghost of his father between them, all the things they don’t talk about. 

She holds up a hand, ‘I might not like it,’ sees his face, ‘not ‘cos he’s a bloke babes, ‘cos he’s your boss and he’s too old for you and he took you away from me like he did your dad and he puts you in danger and I hate that. But when I see him again I’m gonna give him a fuckin’ slap and a massive hug ‘cos his dying destroyed you. Nearly took you away from me proper. So, if he’s come back that can only be a good thing, right?’

‘I suppose.’

‘No suppose, you love him, and you’ve got a second chance. Think how likely that is. I know you Eggsy, you won’t walk away from someone when they need you. Now, come on, I’ll make your bed up for you.’

All these people, Harry, Merlin, his mum, seem so sure of him, like they can see his potential, his worth, but Eggsy’s spent the last eight months without Harry on a knife edge and having him back is not the reprieve he expected. It feels more like being sliced open all over again.


	4. Chapter 4

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ says Merlin as he marches into Harry’s room. Eggsy came back from Tokyo last night and yet Harry still woke up alone.

Harry pretends valiantly to be a little dense, ‘shouldn’t have done what exactly?’

Merlin gives him a look which quite clearly states, you know what, but he still spells it out, ‘slept with Eggsy.’

‘Watching, were you?’ Harry curls his lip and tries to look supercilious which is hard to do in one's pyjamas. 

‘Of course I wasn’t watching. I stopped monitoring the room when it was clear where your “conversation” was headed. You still shouldn’t have done it.’

‘And why not? Eggsy consented. It’s where we’ve always been heading. You said so yourself. I was giving him what he wanted.’

‘And what did you want? You can’t fuck forgiveness out of him, Harry.’

‘I don’t need forgiveness.’

‘No, but you want it.’

‘What about Percival? Roxanne? You? You didn’t grieve for me? You didn’t care for me enough for my coming back to make much of a difference just so long as I can take on Arthur? Why should this only change things for Eggsy?’ Even as he’s speaking he hates himself. He almost wants Merlin to start shouting at him. Anything would be better than the look of pity on his face, ‘Eggsy’s a big boy, I’m sure he’s fine, he can handle himself.’

‘That’s why he was doing the walk of shame out of here at two in the morning is it? Because he can handle himself? He thought you were dead. He grieved for you. It took everything out of him but he was getting better. This changes everything.’

Harry has nothing to say to that, knows Merlin is right, every part of him pulling in two directions; wanting to go to Eggsy and wanting to leave him in peace. Everything about how Eggsy had looked, how he’d behaved was haunted. Haunted by Harry’s ghost even as Harry, real and alive but broken, stood in front of him.

‘Is he coming in today for your debrief? I’ll speak to him.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ says Merlin, softly, ‘he needs to adjust. Things are different now. Not least because of last night.’

‘I hardly think one poorly timed liaison will have made that much difference. If I am the cause of his distress I should be the one to address it.’

There’s that look of pity again and Merlin says, ‘you’ve been alone for far too long, Harry. You’ve forgotten what love feels like.’

‘Nonsense. Eggsy isn’t in love with me,’ he says even as hope soars.

Merlin laughs, shakes his head, ‘yes he is but he isn’t who I was talking about.’ 

*

Harry doesn’t see Eggsy all day even though he knows he’s at medical for assessment and to be signed off for redeployment in the field. He spends about an hour pretending he isn’t going to try and hack into Merlin’s diary to see when he has his meeting with Eggsy is and then does it anyway. It’s ridiculously easy which means Merlin isn’t trying to keep him out. They have a chat scheduled at 3pm in one of the meeting rooms. 

An agent coming out of deep cover is usually handled with kid gloves, passed between Kingsman’s psych team and their handler; a balance between ensuring all intel is recorded quickly and that the agent is mentally robust enough to talk about it. Merlin will debrief quickly with Eggsy today before handing him over to Kingman’s resident psychologist. A few weeks of sessions combined with any physical rehab and there’s no reason Eggsy can’t be back in the field in a month. A month of Eggsy in London, at HQ, catching up on admin, available. 

Harry refuses to think about it at all until quarter to three and then, he is Arthur after all, tunes in to the feed from the meeting room. Merlin is already sitting at the meeting table, writing something on his tablet as Eggsy slumps in one of the armchairs off to the side. He’s wearing jeans and a hoodie today, the dark circles under his eyes are an even deeper purple, he’s curling in on himself, not looking Merlin in the eyes.

‘We’re not going into too much detail today,’ says Merlin ‘we just need to go over the most salient points from your time in Japan.’ 

Eggsy nods, voice rough, ‘OK.’

‘You were undercover as part of the diplomatic corps, correct?’ 

‘Yep.’

‘How long until you positioned yourself as potentially corruptible?’

‘Two months.’

‘And in your opinion how far up did the corruption go?’

‘To the deputy prime minister. I’m sure the prime minister had nothing to do with it. Saw no way to stop it,’ he seems on surer ground talking about the mission.

‘You saw money changing hands?’

‘The whole police force was paid off. It left the door open for the smaller crime families to go professional.’

Merlin nods, ‘what sort of paper trail are we talking about?’

‘Almost nothing. I was at the governmental end; they wanted to keep their noses clean. Couldn’t be seen to be living above their pay grade.’

‘Everything going into off-shore accounts?’

‘Right.’

‘You got out when your visa expired?’

‘Just like we planned. The diplomatic visit was over, it would have looked weird if I’d stayed longer. We need to go back in – further down the pipeline to have a chance of destabilising the corruption.’ 

‘We have Kay prepping for that now.’

‘The deputy PM was pretty certain they’d successfully rig the next election to keep all their people in power. Most of them were civil servants though, they ain’t going nowhere.’

‘You can write this up for Kay? Make sure he’s up to speed on all the key players?’ 

‘Sure.’

‘Well done, good work.’ 

‘Doesn’t seem like I did much. For all the time it took.’

‘Intel gathering is key, lad. You can’t always go in guns blazing; you kept your head down, didn’t blow your cover. Now we can start weeding out the rot.’

‘When can I go back out again?’

‘One month, standard protocol.’

‘But…!’

‘You need to be cleared by psych and medical and you could do with a break,’ Merlin regards him seriously, ‘and you should talk to Harry.’

Harry bristles. Hadn’t Merlin just this morning told Harry to keep his distance? What is he playing at?

Eggsy shifts uncomfortably, glances to the corner where he knows there’s a camera, watching. 

‘This on record, is it?’

‘Not if it doesn’t need to be.’

‘Don’t see how me and Harry are any of your business.’

‘It’s my business if I say it is. You’re one of my best agents. Harry’s our new Arthur. I can’t have anything jeopardising my missions.’

‘Me and Harry are fine.’

‘How did you get those bruises? That split lip?’

Eggsy shifts awkwardly, ‘got into a fight at Heathrow.’

‘Got into a fight or started a fight?’

‘Same difference.’

Merlin raises an eyebrow in that way that still makes Harry feel like a six-year-old. Eggsy shifts slightly but keeps holding eye contact; he’s always had more balls than Harry. Balls enough to start picking fights when he should be extracting himself from a mission safely. Harry wonders at the provocation that got Eggsy to snap and a guilty little part of himself hopes it was the anticipation of returning to his side, wound tight and ready to catapult Eggsy into the first fight he could find, into Harry’s arms. 

‘I don’t know how to help him,’ he whispers.

‘Just be there for him. He is going to be fine, Eggsy.’

Eggsy nods, eyes shining, as if he hadn’t really believed that until now.

‘And you need to decide what you want from him.’

‘You telling me not to break his heart, Merlin?’ 

‘Too fucking right,’ Merlin’s smiling too but his eyes are deadly serious.


	5. Chapter 5

Eggsy leaves his meeting with Merlin and goes to find Harry. This he will always come back to; Harry means too much to him to lose and for that he needs to apologise. 

He’s accosted by a nurse outside Harry’s rooms who insists on checking if Harry is well enough for visitors. Through the door, he can hear her saying, ‘your young man is here. Are you up for a visit?’

‘My young…? Oh, you mean Eggsy? Of course, let him in.’

Eggsy walks into the room before she can come and get him, before he can bottle it. She looks disapproving but bustles out.

‘Eggsy.’

‘Hello, Harry.’

Harry is dressed today in soft corduroy and cashmere. The red of his bloodshot eye seems less vivid today but maybe Eggsy is just getting used to it. When they speak it’s at the same time.

‘About last night, I’m sorry I…’

‘Eggsy, I just wanted you to know…’

They catch each other’s eyes, uncertain and full of sincerity, Eggsy can’t help but smile and so does Harry, his eyes crinkling in that way Eggsy used to live for. Eggsy scrubs his hand on the back of his neck, ‘can I sit down?’ 

Harry nods, follows him to the armchairs, and waits patiently for Eggsy to speak. Eggsy looks down at his hands, swallows through the catch in his throat and looks up at Harry; determined to be the man everyone thinks he can be, that Harry deserves. He’s a gentleman, or still learning to be, and he will be a gentleman to Harry even if it kills him.  
‘Sorry about rushing off last night,’ he starts, already feeling himself flush at the memory, ‘it probably wasn’t the best idea, us doin’ that. Me asking that of you, when you ain’t 100%. I wanna be there for you, help you get back on your feet or whatever but you bein’ Arthur and, I dunno, everything from before. I think it’s best if we’re just friends, yeah? If you want that?’ 

It all comes out in a rush, staring Harry down like it’s a challenge, daring him to object, to say he doesn’t regret it, that Eggsy has nothing to be sorry for but Harry just looks briefly confused, like he hasn’t followed Eggsy’s meaning, before his face smooths back into one of understanding and mild approval.

‘Yes, Eggsy, that would be for the best, of course. Now, shall I call for some tea? We have a lot to catch up on I’m sure.’

It’s all a bit of an anti-climax as they slip back into the motions of friendship like Harry hasn’t spent the best part of a year dead and that all the best parts of Eggsy weren’t stripped down and wrung out in grieving for him. It’s easier to pretend if he keeps Harry smiling at him instead of that wounded look in his eyes from last night, so he nods, tries to bury his desperation, his lack of self-control and his cowardice, pastes on a grin, ‘yeah go on, where’d you want me to start?’

*

The first mission Eggsy has back in the field is local; sneaking into an office near London Bridge, nicking some woefully unsecured files and getting out. Harry is in his ear keeping tabs on any overly eager office workers, if they’re getting in at 5.45am they need to get a life, and feeding looped footage to the security cameras. He also will not stop talking. Eggsy makes a mental note to ask Merlin if Harry is this chatty running point for all the agents or if he’s just lucky.

In the month post his deep cover mission Eggsy has been ‘off duty’, which is really just code for ‘sit at this desk and finish some fucking paperwork’, he and Harry have built up a tentative but genuine friendship. Different to how they had been with each other pre-V-Day but that’s to be expected; they had barely had a chance to get to know each other back then, their fondness for each other forged from the memory of a dead man and denial that there could be anything more between them. 

Now, they go for pub lunches with Merlin and Roxy, Harry takes him to art galleries and the theatre, they get pissed on the really good scotch and on one memorable occasion Harry allowed Eggsy to take him to Nandos. They are absolutely closer than they were before; he doesn’t think there’s anything about his life before Kingsman Harry doesn’t know and maybe only Merlin has seen more of Harry’s life than Eggsy. He collects details about Harry like treasure, learning him, slotting himself around Harry’s habits as if it had always been so and if he occasionally finds himself looking at Harry longingly or leaving the mews at the end of an evening when all he wants to do is stay, well, that’s his problem. When he catches Harry looking at him with something like regret he tries not to read too much into it. They don’t talk about that night and Harry has forgiven him.

This is Harry’s first mission back after being shot in the fucking head so Eggsy can excuse the fact it feels like Baby’s First Spy Mission. But it's also another test; can they work together or will Merlin reassign them, unspoken or not it's a risk and Eggsy won't fuck up now, can't fuck up on a job this easy.

The thing is, the fact it’s so easy means they can’t get lost in the work and Harry’s warm, rumbling voice in his ear, talking to him about new fabrics for the shop of all things is actually quite distracting. He waits for the lift, trying not to tap his foot impatiently. 

‘The files are on the 8th floor,’ says Harry, ‘standard dial lock on the safe, let’s see how much you’ve learned from Merlin’s safe cracking lessons.’

Eggsy raises his eyebrows in the mirror at the back of the lift as the doors ping open, ‘yeah, I paid attention to the safe cracking tech he gave me. Opens a safe in 60 seconds he said.’

Harry chuckles, warmth ticking down Eggsy’s spine at the sound of it, he hopes Harry can’t see him blush in his reflection.

‘There may be a time when you don’t have Merlin’s little gadgets and you need to remember how to do it the old-fashioned way.’

Christ, Harry has a habit of talking about utterly innocent things, not that breaking and entering can be described as innocent, in a way that’s dripping with enough innuendo to make a pantomime dame blush. Eggsy isn’t sure he knows he’s doing it; he is a man who cracked a joke about popping Eggsy’s cherry after only knowing him a few weeks so maybe this is just the way he is. It makes Eggsy squirm with guilt and regret for everything he wanted them to be together but was too afraid to ask for until it was too late. Except Harry’s teasing makes him feel safe, a witness to Harry’s recovery and the ease with which they have rebuilt their friendship. It can almost make Eggsy forget and look forward; glad for who they have become to each other after everything. That Harry can forgive him even as it makes Eggsy ache with longing. 

So, he laughs back, plays along, ‘you’ll have to remind me how it’s done then, all the best techniques and that.’

The doors slide open on the 8th floor and he picks the lock easily. There are no cameras in the offices, only in the communal areas, so he can relax in here.

‘Safe’s in the boss’ office,’ says Harry, ‘to the left, behind that painting.’

Eggsy presses down on the bottom right corner of a truly tacky painting, the kind only found in corporate offices, and it swings forward.

‘Gently does it then,’ says Harry into the hush, ‘you know what you’re looking for, hear it, then feel the resistance. It’s like a dance, you’ve got to lead.’ 

Eggsy nods even though Harry can’t see him. Breathes out once, holds his breath and steps forward to twist the dial gently counter clockwise. He hears the change in tone as the lock clicks through the first number in the combination and breathes out.

‘Good boy,’ murmurs Harry, ‘keep going.’

Eggsy huffs out a laugh, spins the dial the other way, feeling for that pull, the sudden release of tension. 

‘Halfway there,’ says Harry. Eggsy can feel his heart beating in the early morning quiet, there’s no rush here, he has plenty of time, yet he feels so highly strung, his body thrumming with something like arousal. Harry’s right, it is like a dance, or maybe like a good fuck, the give and take on the way to a climax, of sorts. Christ, he needs to pull himself together; Merlin will never let them go on missions if Eggsy loses himself like this just to Harry murmuring in his ear. He breathes out again, flexes his fingers, sweaty inside his gloves. Hand back on the dial he hears Harry softly mutter, ’shit’, as if from a distance. 

‘Someone’s coming,’ he says louder, ‘safe cracking lesson over for today. In and out, quickly now.’ 

Nothing like the threat of discovery to sober yourself up. Eggsy grabs Merlin’s safe cracking device from his pocket, holds it over the dial. A whir and a click and the door swings open in 47 seconds exactly. He grabs the files, shoves them in his briefcase, shuts the safe back behind its painting and heads out into the lift going down just as the numbers on the second lift start to tick upwards. 

On the street outside Eggsy lets himself be carried along in the chilly bustle of the morning commute, blending in with other be-suited wankers on their way to work.

‘Excellent work, Galahad,’ says Harry, all business again, voice back to his usual honeyed tones as opposed to the seductive rumble he’d had in Eggsy’s ear moments ago, ‘dinner later? I’ve picked up a fine new gin I want to try if you’re up for it?’

‘Sure, Harry, sounds great, I’ll see you later, yeah?’ Eggsy mutters into his sleeve, the problem with proper hands-free is you do look like a bit of a knob talking to yourself in the street.

‘Very good, Arthur out,’ says Harry and the line goes dead. 

Eggsy walks back to Savile Row, stupid considering he’s got incriminating evidence of election fraud in his briefcase, but with the traffic this time of the morning the walk is bound to be quicker and he needs to clear his head. They got through the mission, such as it was, nearly got caught but none of their surveillance suggested anyone in that office bothered to get to work that early. Sure, if Harry hadn’t been fannying about with ‘the old-fashioned way’ and ‘it’s like a dance’ and all that bollocks it wouldn’t have been such a close-run thing but they managed but he still feels dazed, like this was a tougher mission that it was, confused and out of sorts.

This is Harry’s fault, always putting Eggsy’s mind in the gutter, his heart in his throat. 

*

In the end he doesn’t speak to Merlin about Harry, he goes to speak to Roxy instead. Roxy can be more terrifying than Merlin when she wants. OK not quite, but she’s getting there and at least they can drink wine while she has a go at him.

‘He is unbelievable,’ she says over the rim of her wine glass, lips already staining purple, feet tucked under her on the sofa, ‘you told him you just wanted to be friends, yeah? He needs to respect that.’

Eggsy immediately jumps to defend Harry, ‘I do kinda play along sometimes,’ all the time.

He doesn’t meet her eyes, fingers picking at the frayed hem of one of her sofa cushions. When he risks a glance upwards she’s regarding him shrewdly, already assessing. It’s terrifying how she can do that, see right through to the truth of him. Harry gets that look sometimes too but Eggsy isn’t sure what he sees. 

‘Eggsy… you don’t…are you still into Harry?’

It feels like the night in training, the truth rising up out of him, unstoppably, as unavoidable as rising water in a quiet dorm. He forgets sometimes that Roxy was there with him for all of it. She saw what Harry dying did to him. How he almost didn’t make it through. He takes a deep breath, going under, ‘yes. Yes, more than before probably,’ eyes back to the cushion.

‘Oh my god. You’re unbelievable,’ Roxy prises his hands off the cushion, she’s looking at him softly now in counterpoint to the exasperation in her voice, which is somehow worse, ‘you need to talk to Harry.’

‘And how do I do that? Oh Harry, you know when you came back from the dead and we shagged and I scarpered in the middle of the night and then said it was a mistake and we should just be friends? Well that was a mistake and actually I’m a little bit in love with you,’ he’s aiming for flippant but there’s a catch in his voice he can’t control and his face goes hot with the admission.

‘Oh, Eggsy,’ and if she carries on with that tone of voice he really will cry.

‘Nah, look. Pathetic, I know,’ he laughs, ‘mum doesn't even like Harry all that much and she’s well pissed I ballsed it up.’

‘You haven’t ballsed it up,’ says Roxy, ‘you’re just at crossed purposes. You’ve been bottling too much up and god knows what terrible advice Merlin’s been giving Harry. You just need to talk to each other. Be honest.’

He must make a face at that because she nudges him with her toe, ‘easier said than done, I know, but it’ll be better than this right? You’ll be clear.’ 

‘But what if this is just Harry? What if he’s flirty with everyone once he gets to know them.’

‘He doesn’t flirt with me,’ says Roxy, grinning.

‘Obviously he wouldn’t flirt with you! He’s not into women!’

‘Isn’t he? See, I didn’t know that, not officially. He tells you things, takes you places, defends you when Merlin is on one because you did something stupid on a mission. Anyone with a pair of eyes can see that you mean something more to him. So ask him what that means.’ 

Eggsy has wrapped himself up in Harry’s praise, his teasing and flirting, like it’s cotton wool, bubble wrap, a testament to how far they’ve come, how OK they are. A protection against his guilt and the feelings he still has for Harry but he’s never let himself think about why Harry does it. Eggsy loves him, what does Harry feel for him in return?

‘I do not do stupid things on missions,’ he says petulantly so he won’t have to admit she’s right.

‘If you think that it’s only because Harry coddles you.’


	6. Chapter 6

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ says Merlin, again. 

Harry looks up from his desk with eyebrows raised, ‘you’re going to have to be more specific, Merlin, as you seem to disapprove of most things I do.’

‘Stop flirting with Eggsy.’ 

Harry opens his mouth to deny it but, really, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He knows he flirts with Eggsy, just this side of appropriate, but Eggsy flirts back, all in good fun and no one gets hurt. It might break Harry’s heart to send Eggsy home at the end of an evening or to see him looking guiltily pleased at Harry when they go a bit too far but Harry couldn’t lose Eggsy’s sunny smiles or teasing banter. That would be much worse. Having Eggsy near but not being able to have him is bearable, not having him at all would be torture. 

‘Please, it’s harmless, just a bit of fun. He gives as good as he gets.’ 

‘Nothing with you is harmless, Harry. He made it very clear what he wanted, you’ve got to let him go, especially if you’re going to work with him on missions. I can’t have him distracted.’ 

‘I would have thought you’d approve of me ensuring the old ways are kept alive. We were merely practicing your safe cracking techniques. It was a shame we were interrupted but we couldn’t have known someone would come in early.’

‘That wasn’t a safe cracking lesson, Harry, that was a seduction.’

‘Merlin,’ says Harry firmly, shutting down further conversation, ‘Eggsy and I are fine. Now if you don’t get out of my office and leave me alone, I’ll start flirting with you.’

They’ve been friends for far too long to take each other’s threats seriously but Merlin still manages to look thoroughly disgusted at the very thought.

‘I just hope you know what you’re doing. For your sake as well as his,’ says Merlin and Christ he does actually look concerned, something Harry had hoped was relegated to the past now he was fully recovered and back at work. He’s briefly overcome with the desire to come clean, tell Merlin how much he cares for Eggsy, how he suspects Eggsy feels similarly but is denying himself, but the words are strangled before they come out. It’s messy and undignified, things Harry tries to avoid at all costs, and he’s increasingly convinced Eggsy really would be better off without him. Harry’s death cut him deeply and he often looks at Harry like his return might still be a dream he has yet to wake from, even now. It’s far too self-important of Harry to consider his significance in Eggsy’s life so highly and utterly selfish of him to place himself by Eggsy’s side and make himself too important to lose, again. If Harry pulled away now, insisted they should be colleagues and nothing more it would tear Eggsy apart.

‘I always know exactly what I’m doing,’ is what he says to Merlin because he’s bullshitted his way through life and heartbreak before now, he can do it again, ‘now, did you have anything work related to discuss or were you just here to give me unsolicited advice?’

‘New mission for you and Galahad in Greece,’ says Merlin peevishly, ‘I would send literally any other agent but they are all currently deployed and you speak Greek so it’ll have to be the two of you and lord help me if you fuck it up we will need to search for a new Arthur.’

Harry rolls his eyes, ‘do I have to remind you who’s boss here?’

‘Every day, Sir,’ says Merlin clicking his heels and grinning. 

Harry laughs, gestures for the file, ‘do we need Galahad in here to brief too?’, it still makes him warm with pride when he uses Eggsy’s code name; he’d been without one when Harry had returned and had insisted that Galahad be reinstated. 

Merlin glances at his watch, ‘I told him to come by your office at 1.30pm he should be here any…’

The door opens and Eggsy strolls in, without knocking, and Harry can’t stop the grin that spreads across his face at the sight of him. Merlin gives him a pained look and clears his throat. 

‘Merlin, Harry, alright?’ says Eggsy, taking a seat.

Merlin follows suit after a look from Harry and says, ‘Arthur and I have a new mission for you.’

‘Sweet, where am I going?’ says Eggsy, reaching for the file which Merlin flicks away from him.

‘You and Arthur will be heading to Greece. A far right group, calling themselves Eagle Rising, has been making a lot of noise and with elections coming up we need to destabilise their activities. Their bark might be worse than their bite but we can never be too careful. Go in, gather intel about their movements, operations and so on. We don’t want to see any bloodshed but if needs must…’

‘Beat the shit out of the Nazi fuckers, got it,’ says Eggsy. 

Merlin smiles fondly, ‘quite.’

Eggsy turns to Harry, ‘Greece, eh, Haz? Hope you’ve got your speedos packed,’ and winks. 

Merlin really has no right to have a go at Harry when this is what he’s up against. When Eggsy disappears behind the file he’s snatched from Merlin Harry raises his eyebrows as if to say ‘see?!’ but Merlin just smiles sweetly at him. 

*

The villa Kingsman owns in Greece is, Harry thinks wryly, spartan to say the least but the sunshine, blue waters and white sand beaches are close enough to paradise to make up for it. 

Ostensibly they are here on holiday, the details of their cover Merlin tactfully left for them to work out themselves, so they’ve gone for father and son which causes an appallingly guilty thrill to go down Harry’s spine when he thinks about it. Eggsy definitely knows it too, the little shit, because when they were getting their suitcases out of the car and into the house, Harry tipping the taxi driver while the housekeeper was wringing her hands at them he said, ‘where did you put my iPad?’ with a suggestive little tilt of the hips. 

Harry hates himself, except he doesn’t, so he replies, ‘in the bedroom, darling.’ 

Neither the driver nor the housekeeper speak much English so the glorious ambiguity is lost on everyone but Eggsy who flushes a delicious shade of pink. 

*

There are, in fact, two bedrooms and, as is befitting every Kingsman property, an excessive amount of booze. That way madness lies but Harry has never been all that good at restraint so as they’re hashing out their plan for getting inside the building Merlin has identified as the base of Eagle Rising’s operations to plant surveillance equipment he says, ‘shall we have a drink then?’ 

Eggsy is sprawled on the sofa in front of the open French windows as Harry looks up from the floorplans they’ve been examining, he’s in shorts and a polo shirt, sunglasses tucked into his collar. He looks every bit the spoilt trust fund kid he’s supposed to be playing but the tan he’s developing and the golden sheen of his hair after only two days is so becoming Harry can’t bring himself to tease. He’s smiling warmly, his shirt riding up to reveal the flat planes of his stomach, his limbs relaxed. He looks softer, happier than Harry has seen him in a long time. It makes Harry want to cry with gratitude that they are safe and together, if only in this moment, but Eggsy is looking at him expectantly so Harry gets up, pours them both a scotch and heads over to the sofa to hand Eggsy his glass. 

Eggsy shifts over to make room for Harry to sit down but resettles closely to Harry’s side, his thigh a warm line against Harry’s. 

Harry knows he isn’t really asking if Eggsy wants a drink. The tension is palpable; here, hundreds of miles from home it feels bigger somehow to tease, to smile at Eggsy in a way that’s laden with possibility, to give in to hope. And the way Eggsy is leaning in to him Harry knows he’ll get what he wants, what he shouldn’t be asking for if he lets himself. So, Harry swallows his drink quickly, lets it burn his throat and stands up, taking everything back in one movement.

‘We’ve got a busy day tomorrow, we should get some sleep,’ he says, walking over to the bar. 

Something in Eggsy’s face shuts down as he nods, a space spreads between them wider that the span of the living room they’re standing in and Harry wants to reach out, pull Eggsy to him, but he can hear Merlin in his head and see the haunted look on Eggsy’s face as he turns away. 

*

The next morning Eggsy, squinting through his sunglasses and looking at the map in the tourist guide, looks sourly at Harry and says, ‘I think we’re lost.’

Harry grabs the book out of his hands a little more forcefully than necessary and says, ‘nonsense, you just have a terrible sense of direction. You get that from your mother.’ 

Eggsy glares at him, pulls out his phone and scuffs his feet on the dusty pavement. Eggsy had been frosty with him all morning and now they’re out in public he’s really laying the spoiled son routine on thick. Harry spent the night feeling stupid and denied as if he hadn’t been the one doing the denying. It had always been so easy to shower Eggsy with praise, bestow him with warm smiles and, yes, flirt. Despite what Eggsy had said about just wanting to be friends he’d always responded in kind, but last night was different, he’d offered Eggsy something he couldn’t in good conscience give or expect in return and now Eggsy was rightly angry with him. 

Harry gestures minutely with a flick of his wrist and with a random, ambling gait they make their way down a side street behind a dodgy looking hotel. The outbuilding the group has been using is quiet and Harry’s glasses aren’t showing any heat signatures so it’s empty. 

‘Get in, plant the bugs, get out,’ the task at hand is simple, they can’t afford to fuck up here, so Eggsy just nods, does as he’s told, ‘don’t touch anything,’ Harry still scolds.

‘Alright, dad, leave it out, I know, yeah?’

Eggsy ducks inside the building, so woefully unsecured Harry dashes out a message to Merlin to check they’re in the right place but he responds quickly in the affirmative, and Harry loiters with a look of polite confusion typical of the Englishman abroad. 

A hand on the small of his back startles him, too intimate and close in the sticky warm air. Eggsy smiles at him, the effort of maintaining his irritation already wearing thin. Eggsy has always been soft, sweet, too generous for this life by far. His capacity for forgiveness forever letting Harry off the hook. 

‘There wasn’t much in there. Few papers and that. I planted six bugs so we should get pretty good coverage.’

‘Excellent, Galahad. Let’s head home then shall we?’

The look Eggsy gives him then is of pure disappointment and Harry finds himself wrongfooted all over again. What faux pas has he committed now?

Back at the villa Eggsy turns on the surveillance equipment which just crackles with static and gives them a view of the empty outhouse from six angles. They stare dumbly at the screen for a beat before Eggsy stretches, presses a few buttons and stands up.

‘Right, I’m going for a swim. I’ve set it to notify us if there’s anything worth watching.’

He doesn’t ask if Harry wants to join him and quite frankly the sight of Eggsy nearly naked and emerging from the aegean sea like Daniel Craig is not something Harry could handle right now so he sets himself up for an afternoon of mindlessly monitoring an empty room.

*

Harry finds himself jerking awake to darkness outside and Eggsy watching him, in his pyjamas now, when his glasses ping with an alert. Harry comes back to awareness quickly, years of experience tuning his senses to respond fast.

‘They’re all there?’ he asks.

Eggsy shakes his head, ‘only three of them just now.’

‘We’re recording?’

‘Yes, you’ll have to translate. I can take notes.’

Harry snaps on the headphones, turns up the volume. The conversation is overwhelmingly banal; the chatter of men who have very little to say for themselves, wives, kids, work; terrifyingly normal for how dangerous they seem to be.

Eggsy is poised with a notebook and pen, his ability to write shorthand always a mild surprise (‘my mum did secretarial school for a bit. I was bored, borrowed a textbook. Whatever, Harry, it ain’t that weird!’) 

Harry shakes his head, holds up a hand and Eggsy relaxes almost imperceptibly. After a few minutes of tedious chat a fourth man enters and the rest of the assembled company sit up straighter; the boss has clearly arrived. Harry gestures for Eggsy to begin, dictates the conversation as he translates from Greek.

‘We’re ready for Friday?’

‘Yes, boss.’

Eggsy frowns, mouths, ‘what’s Friday?’

‘We’ll get there at 5.30 with the catering team,’ says one of the men, gesturing to the man on his right, ‘we’ll let Dimitros in round the back at 7.30. The Prime Minister is due to arrive at 8.00pm’

The boss nods, ‘Dimitrios, you’re prepared? You’ll do what needs to be done to take him out?’

‘All will be in position by 9.30. We’ll have a window either side if he’s late or leaves early.’

‘Good. Reconvene check point two after it’s done. Miriam is handling the announcement; we’ll claim it as ours in the immediate aftermath.’

They all murmur their assent, gathering everything in the room as they stand, clearly planning to abandon this base for now.

Harry quickly puts a call in to Merlin as the screen dims, the lights switched off as they leave, ‘is the Greek PM scheduled to attend any events on a Friday evening in the next few weeks?’ waits impatiently for Merlin’s answer.

‘Yes, this week, charity gala, part of his campaign for re-election or next month, the 17th.’

‘Shit,’ Eggsy mutters in the background, ‘tomorrow.’

‘Merlin, we have reason to believe they’re planning to assassinate him. Can you identify them from the footage we took this evening?’

Merlin hums non-committal, ‘yes, but it’ll take time. If they’ve never ended up in the system before I’ll need to get my researchers on it.’

‘Right. If we can’t identify and intercept before tomorrow evening Eggsy and I will have to go in and stop them. Are any other agents back at HQ yet who can provide backup?’

‘No, Bors is back but he’s broken his leg, the idiot. Lancelot will be available after the weekend.’

‘Not ideal but I'm confident they’re amateur enough that we can handle it.’

‘Right, I’ll get you invites for tomorrow night. I trust you both brought your tuxes?’

Harry scoffs, but Eggsy’s muttered, ‘of course,’ inexplicably warms him.

‘Good. Merlin out.’

Eggsy looks warily at the gloomy image on the screen, the battered chairs and table in the outhouse only faint shapes now the light is off. 

‘Should we keep an eye on this? Incase they come back?’

‘Unlikely, you’ve got the alert set up? And it’s streaming to Merlin?’ at Eggsy’s nod he says, ‘then we should get some sleep, we’ve got a busy day tomorrow,’ winces at the bastardisation of his excuse from last night.

Eggsy looks at him softly as he stands up and it’s oddly forgiving, ‘alright then, night, Harry.’


	7. Chapter 7

The gala is glittering and expensive, laughter and warm light spilling out from the building into the streets around it. Stepping out of the cab in impecable black tie Eggsy could almost be forgiven for feeling they were here for a good time instead of attempting to foil an assassination plot. 

He catches himself when the press of Harry’s hand at the small of his back, gently steering him up the steps and into the building, jolts him forward. He’s seen Harry in a tux before now, obviously, but it never stops taking his breath away and Harry looks as stunning as ever tonight. Eggsy flatters himself that he looks pretty good too and if the gormless look Harry gave him when he’d stepped out of his bedroom earlier is anything to go by, he’s right. 

But Eggsy’s tired of it. He’s tired of feeling adored under Harry’s gaze only to find him turning away when Eggsy goes for a second look. Responding to what he thinks Harry’s offering only to be let down like a ton of bricks. When this is over they’re going to have it out. Find some equilibrium between them as best they can. 

They circle the room once, sipping at their champagne flutes, looking haughty and disinterested. The Prime Minister is already there, holding court amongst a circle of sycophants while his security detail look on, bored. Eggsy keeps his eyes on the edges of the room, looking at the white clad serving staff. Harry had him staring at grainy images of the men all day so he could identify them in a moment but on their second circuit of the room he still hasn’t spotted them.

‘They’re not here,’ he whispers urgently and Harry’s hand on his shoulder tightens, ‘there’s too many people.’

‘Patience,’ says Harry gently, ‘they said catering staff, they may be in the kitchens.’ 

‘And how do we get in there?’ Merlin had sent them schematics of the building, the kitchens are one floor down, at the back. 

Harry smiles, takes a glass of red wine off a tray held by a passing waiter and turns, suddenly ebullient, red faced and beaming, ‘darling, would you like red or…’ and upends the glass down Eggsy’s shirt, ‘shit, sorry,’ he says, bashful, pawing ineffectually at Eggsy with a handkerchief, ‘salt, that’s what’ll get it out, dear, I’m sure they’ll have some in the kitchens.’ 

Eggsy glares at him, hisses in a way that would look like a lover’s tiff from the outside, ‘someone should stay up here and keep an eye on him,’ eyes cutting quickly to the Prime Minister. 

Harry nods, eyes still swiveling like the merry drunk he’s pretending to be and waves Eggsy away, ‘quickly now, before the stain sets.’

Eggsy heads out, down the back stairs, ignored by everyone he passes as he continues to scrub at his shirt with the handkerchief in irritation. In the kitchens he goes through the motions, attempting to explain in in stilted Greek, gesturing at his ruined shirt. None of the staff staring at him with surly irritation are the men they’re looking for and Eggsy submits to the ministrations of an older lady who clicks her tongue at him and shakes her head. She strips him out of his jacket and shirt, finds him a clean one from somewhere, a bit too big, and bustles off with a promise to get the stain out. 

Once the frenetic activity starts up again, as the kitchen staff get back to work following the interruption, Eggsy slips back out heading down a corridor at random, tucking his new shirt into his trousers as he goes. It’s not the best tactic, wandering aimlessly around a building of this size, but it’s getting closer to 9.30 and he doesn’t have any better ideas. 

He clicks his glasses to an open line to Harry, ‘Arthur? Anything happening up there? The targets weren’t in the kitchens.’

‘Nothing,’ Harry murmurs in his ear, ‘the PM is still here, safe and sound. How’s your shirt? I was sorry to spoil your outfit, you looked so fetching in it.’ 

Eggsy is about to ask Harry what the fuck he thinks he’s playing at, nevermind the sodding mission, when his glasses beep at him in warning as he turns into a corridor that must be directly underneath the ballroom.

‘...did you have to take it off?’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Your shirt,’ says Harry, low, seductive, ‘did you have to take it off?’

‘Shut up, Harry,’ he hisses, ‘it’s not an assassination attempt, it’s a bomb, they’ve planted explosives under the building.’

‘Fuck,’ says Harry, voice harsh with surprise on the last syllable, ‘I’ll contact Merlin. What read out are your glasses giving? Do we have time for evacuation or do we need to disarm?’

Eggsy turns his head, his glasses indicating an explosive device ten feet ahead of him, in a store cupboard, agonisingly cliche, with a wide blast radius, this street at least, maybe further, ‘start getting everyone out, if it goes off it’ll kill everyone in the city centre, I’ll disarm.’

‘Eggsy…’ says Harry on an outbreath, like it’s been punched out of him.

‘I can do this, Harry, Merlin taught us,’ there are a hundred things he’d rather say, things he wished he’d said before Harry went off to Kentucky, things he should have said between Harry’s improbable resurrection and now but he doesn’t know how long they have. He draws a breath, eyes closed, and opens the door between one heartbeat and the next. The bomb is at the back of the room, strapped to a pipe, the angry red dial of an alarm clock glowing in the darkness of the room. Four minutes. Shit. 

Eggsy can hear through his glasses the sound of Harry speaking urgently to the Prime Minister’s security followed by the panicked sound of people rushing out of the building when someone overhears and freaks out. He switches his glasses feed off, doesn’t need the distraction and kneels down before the bomb. It’s crudely made; an alarm clock and wiring and a fuck-ton of explosives but it’d get the job done. He’s not giving it a chance. Three minutes. 

He wishes he had Harry here or at least in his ear to talk him through it. He knows he can do this, gets out his pen knife, the Swiss Army can get fucked, this one is Kingsman issue, and clips the wire. The clock stops at two minutes. Eggsy breathes out in relief, lets the world swim back into focus, as his glasses continue to beep at him. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Another bomb somewhere else in the building. He dashes back out into the corridor and runs; any sensible terrorist would plant another bomb on the opposite side of the building and his glasses display tells him he’s getting closer. 

Harry appears in the corridor ahead of him, falls immediately into Eggsy’s frantic pace, eyes wide in fear as he must see the truth on his own glasses, ‘we don’t have time to get out,’ he says, breath sharp, long legs taking him ahead of Eggsy down the corridor, a mirror of the one on the other side of the building. Eggsy swings round a corner, yanks open the only door ahead of him, another cupboard, and Harry is through it, going to his knees, knife out to slice the wire, 30 seconds to spare. 

Eggsy sinks to the floor beside Harry, leaning into him, grounding, his glasses giving the all clear as his heart hammers in his chest, adrenaline flooding his system as his body catches up with how close they came to not making it out alive. One of Harry’s big hands sweeps up Eggsy’s back, pulling him in, resting on the nape of his neck and he whispers into Eggsy’s hair, ‘well done, good boy, well done,’ and all Eggsy can do is tip his face up to be kissed. 

It’s nothing like the last time; in the suspended moment following averted disaster, they kiss with relief rather than desperation. Harry’s hands are firm on his jaw, the back of his neck, his mouth softly yielding; Harry clings to him and Eggsy feels wanted. Eggsy slips his hands under Harry’s suit jacket and Harry huffs into his skin, ‘darling…’ like it hurts him to not be kissing Eggsy, touching him, ‘we need to get this mess tidied up.’

He turns his face away, touches the side of his glasses to open a line to HQ, Eggsy doesn’t bother joining them, ‘Merlin,’ a pause, ‘yes quite obviously we managed to disarm the bombs otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you. We have no idea how long they’ll take to regroup. We’ll need your researchers on this, and quickly, especially if they abandon their base and we have to relocate them.’

Eggsy traces a hand up Harry’s thigh, gently teasing, and Harry throws him an exasperated glance, tinged with heat. 

‘What?’ he says to Merlin, ‘no, no. Eggsy - Galahad - and I will be perfectly happy to stay here and follow up without interruption,’ he slides a hand up to Eggsy’s shoulder, again, pulls him close, ‘yes, Merlin, I’m deadly serious,’ and pulls off his glasses to tuck them in his pocket. 

They dismantle both bombs and discretely slip past the bumbling law enforcement that has seen fit to show up. This’ll go down as a bomb scare when they can’t find any explosives on site and the confused party-goers only vaguely recall the smartly dressed Englishman who gave the warning. Merlin will be working frantically to trace those responsible; they have nothing to do now but wait. 

*

The night is warm, moonlight glinting off the water as Eggsy walks through the villa. They could still be working, devising a plan, not wasting a minute, but Harry is behind him, close and purposeful, takes Eggsy’s proffered hand and follows him into the bedroom. 

Now, when they kiss it’s yearning, hopeful, Harry backs him towards the bed and they fall on to it together, ‘this time,’ Harry whispers into the darkness, ‘if you get into my bed, I’m not letting you out of it.’

‘This is my bed,’ says Eggsy, grinning into a kiss, as he pulls Harry over him, ‘and I’m not going anywhere.’

They move their hands on each other slowly, mapping with gentle touches, earnest and forgiving. Harry urges Eggsy on to his back proper, opens the buttons of his too big, borrowed shirt and sweeps his hands across Eggsy’s chest, his stomach. 

In the light from the window the scar spidering across Harry’s temple is silver but his eyes are clear and his hands on Eggsy are sure and firm as he undresses him slowly. His shoes and socks go first, as Harry presses a kiss to Eggsy’s ankle, then he helps Eggsy shove his shirt down off his shoulders, licking gentle circles around a nipple, then lower to drag Eggsy’s trousers and boxers off. 

Harry above him goes on to his elbows and regards Eggsy with such intense adoration it makes Eggsy blush but he feels expansive under Harry’s gaze, safe and finally certain so he rolls his shoulders and flexes, lips quirking with challenge. Harry grins and leans down to trace his tongue along Eggsy’s abs, past his dick, hot-hard and dripping, to nose at Eggsy’s balls, press kisses to the soft skin of his thighs. Eggsy runs his hands through Harry’s hair, brushing through the greying hairs at his temples, luxuriating in the freedom to touch as he wants to. 

‘Harry, you’re wearing too many clothes,’ he says nudging Harry in the side with his foot.

‘Apologies,’ says Harry wryly, sitting up to divest himself of what he’s still wearing. 

There’s still some softness there; the results of a hard won recovery beginning to take shape again but he’s alive and smiling at Eggsy and Eggsy doesn’t think he has enough space in him for the gratitude he feels at that. He leans up to pull Harry into another kiss, thanks and apology both, and Harry responds in kind. They sink back to the bed, bodies pressed close; a slick, inelegant sort of slide as they grind together, Eggsy’s breath hot in the hollow of Harry’s throat. 

‘Harry, please,’ says Eggsy, digging his fingers into Harry’s arse to encourage the movement of his hips as Harry gasps out, ‘yes, anything you want.’

‘I want you fuck me, Harry, will you?’ 

‘God, yes. I don’t...do you have?’ and Eggsy reluctantly rolls away from their heated embrace to drag his suitcase closer to the bed and rummage for the lube and condoms he packed.

‘Did you plan for this?’ says Harry, amusement colouring his tone as he takes the proferred tube from Eggsy. 

Eggsy shrugs, grinning, ‘I’m an optimist.’ 

Harry looks uncertain for a moment, his old confidence fading, the shadow of the man he was when he came back from Kentucky falling over his features.

Eggsy moves to hold him tightly, puts himself firmly in Harry’s lap, ‘I know what I said, Harry. I was wrong. This is what I want.’ 

‘Good. Me too, darling boy, me too,’ and kisses him with such fervour Eggsy thinks he could come, just from this, pressed to the hot, sweaty skin of Harry’s body. But Harry’s moving with intent now, arranging Eggsy how he wants him, fingers teasing in the crack of Eggsy’s arse and Eggsy lets go, arches into it.

Harry murmurs at him sweetly, ‘that’s it, let me in,’ and whether he means his fingers at Eggsy’s arse or his tongue in Eggsy’s mouth Eggsy isn’t sure, gives all of it up regardless. 

The first push in of Harry’s finger is intoxicating. Eggsy hasn’t done this in so long; not since he realized he had an embarrassingly huge, panting crush on Harry which if he’s honest with himself was pretty much instantly. Sure, he’s had a snog in a club here and there, hooked up with a few people, but he’s not fucked anyone since, not let anyone fuck him. He can feel every place they’re touching like a white-hot brand against his skin and all he wants is more and now.

‘Come on, please, touch me, Harry,’ and Harry just chuckles into his skin, takes Eggsy’s dick in his free hand as he presses in another finger. 

‘I am touching you.’

Eggsy tips his hips into the sensation as Harry thumbs at the leaking head of his cock, an impossible tease, and the keening noise Eggsy makes in the back of his throat makes him flush until he opens his eyes to look down at Harry’s face, pink-tinged across his cheekbones and looking up at Eggsy like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen, ‘god, you look good like this.’

‘Like what?’ Eggsy can’t connect the dots between what Harry is saying and what he’s doing so lost is he in the perfect sensation of Harry stroking his cock and fingering his arse.

Harry runs his tongue up Eggsy’s throat, teeth to his jaw, to whisper in Eggsy’s ear, ‘desperate,’ and Eggsy comes, mouth open on a clipped shout, panting like he’s just won a fight not come embarrassingly quickly in the arms of the man he would very much like not to embarrass himself in front of. 

‘Sorry...I…’ but Harry doesn’t let him finish his garbled thought, lays him gently back to the bed, kissing his face, eyelids, slides down to lap at the come glistening on his belly and Eggsy’s dick twitches at the sight. 

‘Don’t apologise. You look stunning when you come, darling.’

‘You’ve seen me come before,’ says Eggsy and acknowledging what they’ve been to each other, now and in the past, gets easier every time, the weight of it lightening into something they can share, revel in.

‘And I’ll see it again before the night is out,’ says Harry like it’s a promise. Inevitable, fixed. 

It sends a shock of heat through Eggsy to hear Harry talk like that with such assurance so he flexes against the sheets, grinning, ‘go on then.’ 

Harry is still ragingly hard, his cock straining against his stomach but with more restraint than Eggsy’s ever bothered to practice he ignores it in favour of stretching Eggsy out and working him further open. 

When Harry finally sinks inside it feels like Eggsy has been waiting for this forever. In one way or another he’s been waiting since that night at Harry’s house when everything was promise and nothing was broken. Harry moves in him languidly, sweet burning pleasure that radiates from Eggsy hips, up his spine to spark across his scalp. He’s all the way hard again now and every press forward of Harry’s hips has him keening.

‘Perfect boy, that’s it,’ Harry whispers, not changing his pace, fucking Eggsy strong and sure, ‘let me hear you.’

‘Please, Harry, want to feel you, want to feel you come,’ he's close, wants to last long enough to see Harry come, but the firm strokes of Harry's hand over his cock and the perfect fullness of Harry buried in his arse have him spiralling ever closer. Eggsy closes his eyes, murmurs a breathy, 'please?' like he doesn't know what he's asking for anymore and Harry chuckles, brushes his thumb over the head of Eggsy's dick and Eggsy comes, harder than before, feeling his body lock tight like a vice and then drift into the syrupy, pliant lassitude of a really fucking good orgasm. 

‘Christ, yes, Eggsy,’ Harry presses his face into the sweaty divot of Eggsy’s collarbones, one hand firm on Eggsy’s dick as he strokes him through it, losing that finesse as he reaches his own climax, the heat of his body, the spicy, warm smell of him encompassing, all Eggsy can think about, the only thing he wants. Eggsy lets his limbs go loose, relaxes back onto the bed and closes his eyes, to the glorious sensation of Harry continuing to fuck him, slower and slower until he stills, both of them sated and wrapped up in each other, breathing the same air.

*

A beeping noise from the bedside table rouses Eggsy out of his delicious post-coital stupor and he gropes blindly for his glasses with as minimal movement as possible. 

‘Gentleman, I hate to interrupt, ' says Merlin just as Eggsy watches Harry fumble his own glasses on to his sweaty face, ‘but we’ve tracked them down, if you can make yourselves decent and get on with your jobs…

Harry makes a face, rolling his eyes, and making no move to leave the bed. He, at least, is primly covered up to the neck by a sheet but whatever view Merlin is getting via Harry’s glasses is of Eggsy bollock naked and grinning. 

Eggsy laughs, ‘sure thing, Merlin, you’re the boss,’ as it’s clear Harry has no intention of doing anything without significant motivation.

‘I fucking wish,’ says Merlin in their ears, ‘and while we’re all very happy you’ve finally worked yourselves out there’s work to be done.’ 

Harry speaks from his nest of duvet and pillows, ‘we’ll be on our way presently,’ finally sitting up and giving Merlin an eyeful via Eggsy’s glasses in the process.

‘I’m billing the Kingsman psychiatrist for any therapy I have to undergo to get this entire conversation wiped from my memory, Harry,’ Merlin says tartly. 

‘Don’t be such a prude, Merlin, you’ve seen my arse before,’ and with that Harry gets out of bed and all but saunters out of the room. 

*

Just as they’re about to leave the villa a wave of uncertainty hits Eggsy watching Harry shoot his cuffs and holster his gun. There’s an unreality to this whole evening and Eggsy feels like he can’t trust the evidence of his own senses, the ache he can still feel in his limbs as proof of what they’ve done. 

‘Harry, I…’ 

But Harry turns to him and smiles, doesn’t let the doubts manifest, ‘the quicker we get this sorted, the quicker I can take you back to bed.’

Eggsy grins, ‘promise?’ and is rewarded with a quick peck on the lips.

‘I promise.’


	8. Chapter 8

Harry watches Eggsy come in through the door of the briefing room with a beaming smile and then falter when he sees Harry, blushing as he takes his seat; Roxy gives him a significant look but Eggsy just waves her off, pointedly not looking towards the head of the table. 

Their departure from Greece had been magnificent, taking down the entire central operation of Eagle Rising as easy as breathing; brutality and grace in equal measure as they worked together to dismantle the entire organisation. By the time they were done, bad guys apprehended and plans foiled, it had been late and Eggsy had slept much of the way home on the Kingsman jet, one hand loosely clasped in Harry’s, before being dispatched off to Geneva on another mission as soon as they’d touched down. Harry hasn’t seen him in three weeks, much less spoken to him, and his joy at Eggsy’s return and hope for their inevitable reunion is swiftly dashed by Eggsy’s refusal to meet his eyes. 

They make it through the entire meeting without so much as a glance at each other although Harry keeps looking in Eggsy’s direction. He might be a touch distracted, a fact which Merlin has no doubt noticed, but he’s beyond grateful when he can finally declare the meeting concluded.

It’s not something he delights in but it is a relief to be able to say, ‘Galahad, a word,’ and make him stay as Eggsy attempts to bolt out of the meeting room. He does at least get some eye contact, then, but it’s sullen and wary as Eggsy sidles back to Harry’s side. There’s still so much of the young man he was when they first met in the way he carries himself, none of his new found confidence. Harry hates it. 

‘Do take a seat,’ Harry straightens his tie as he sits back down. Perhaps he should have asked Eggsy to come to his office, they’re too much on the job in here, sat around the table where Eggsy killed a man and permanently secured his place in Harry’s life and affections. 

‘Nah, you’re alright, I'd rather do this standing,’ he’s shoved his hands into his pockets, isn’t looking at Harry again but out of the windows onto the street outside and Harry fancies he can see tears threatening somewhere behind the steely resolve of his jaw. 

‘Eggsy,’ he says softly and Eggsy's head tilts back in surprise, sharply, like he’s taking a hit.

‘You don’t have to be nice about it.’ 

Merlin has said nothing about what happened to Eggsy in Geneva, a nice straightforward mission, and the reports Harry's received as Arthur give nothing away. Harry’s lost the thread somewhere, he’s sure, there’s a conversation Eggsy’s having and he’s not party to it. He doesn’t stand up, as much as he wants to, let’s Eggsy keep what control he can by standing over Harry.

‘Nice about what?’

Eggsy scuffs his feet and shrugs, nonchalant but fooling no-one, ‘breaking up with me.’

Harry almost laughs but he can see Eggsy means it, can’t fathom where this is coming from. 

‘I’m not breaking up with you,’ a gentleman is always clear about his intentions. Harry may have failed on this score with Eggsy before but he won’t do it now. 

‘But you sent me away.’

‘What?’ 

‘As soon as we was back from Greece, you sent me a way. As soon as we’d had a proper shag you couldn’t wait to be shot of me.’

‘That’s just the job, Eggsy, darling…

He doesn’t imagine that Eggsy flinches at the endearment, ‘but you’re Arthur, you could’ve sent someone else. We didn’t even have time to talk about it.’

He should have foreseen this; signing off on Eggsy’s next mission so soon after their first proper night together could easily have been construed as rejection to Eggsy who has enjoyed so little stability in his life. After losing his father, spending his adolescence under the thumb of someone like Dean, his mother pulled between her son and her new husband, unable to provide the life she wanted for him, it’s a wonder Eggsy is as trusting as he is. 

Harry does get up then, slowly walks across the room. Eggsy is turned away from him, ready to make a run for it if things go south. He will not be the cause of Eggsy’s distress, not again. 

‘Let’s not do this,’ Harry says gently, catching one of Eggsy’s hands, ‘let’s not misunderstand each other, again.’ 

‘I don’t -’ Eggsy huffs in irritation annoyed, clearly, but not at Harry. He’s blushing, his cheeks hot and eyes shiny, shame and frustration furiously held in, ‘I’m not -’

‘If you say, my dear boy, that you’re not good enough for me…’

‘But I'm not, am I? Not really. Not after everything.’  
Harry watches a single, bright tear slide down Eggsy’s cheek and remembers all those months ago; Eggsy’s hand bunched in Harry’s shirt front and all the pain and betrayal writ large across his handsome face as he kissed Harry like it was an accusation and forgiveness all at once. 

‘After everything you are exactly who I want. Who I’ve always wanted. Eggsy, since the moment you barged into my bloody hospital room and snogged the life out of me I knew I was right to have you by my side,’ he pulls Eggsy in, arms embracing and Eggsy just presses his face to Harry’s shoulder and sobs. 

They stand like that, a warm huddle, Harry’s hands soothing and Eggsy’s bunched in the back of Harry’s shirt, for a long time until something like resolve coalesces in the sound of Eggsy’s breathing, ‘I thought I’d lost you and then you wasn’t dead and then Harry you let me - and I -’

‘Eggsy you have never once touched me in a way I didn't want, I promise you.’

‘Felt like I took advantage, you still weren’t you really, after what happened.’

‘Maybe we should have had a conversation first, I grant you, but I wanted it and I wanted you, then and now.’

Eggsy nods, but not like he really believes it. 

‘Thought I was doin’ the gentlemanly thing trying to be friends but you just kept flirting with me. 

‘There are occasions when a gentleman concedes that doing the ungentlemanly thing is the best course of action.’

Eggsy raises a wry eyebrow and Harry delights in the small smile he can see tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes. and of course, you kept flirting back, what was I to do? Let you win?’

A shrug then and Eggsy settles himself back into Harry’s arms, ‘something like that.’

Harry rests his chin on the top of Eggsy’s head, ‘I am sorry for the way we left things and that you had to see - what I did in Kentucky.’

‘I was angry at you, Harry, but it weren’t your fault. You came back to us as fast as you could. 

‘And I will endeavour to come back to you for as long as I can’

‘So we’re good?’

‘Yes, Eggsy, we’re very good.’

‘Dinner then, later? I can cook?’

‘I look forward to it.’

*

Waking up next to Eggsy is a revelation. Harry has always been an early riser but Eggsy, still young and spry sleeps the sleep of the recently teenaged - long and deep. 

Harry wakes up first, always, before the alarm and in the early morning quiet he watches Eggsy; on his front, usually, covers rucked down to reveal the pale golden skin of his back. Eggsy runs hot, sleeps usually in his boxers and nothing else in a way Harry considers deliberately provocative. Harry’s own blue silk pyjamas had been the source of much ribbing and laughter when Eggsy had first seen them.

As Eggsy rises slowly to wakefulness he turns on to his back, arms spread wide towards Harry, face soft and unlined in sleep. He’s still younger than Harry, by a more years than either of them really care to count, and it’s never more apparent in the cool blue light of morning, his hair fluffy and free of product, mouth slightly parted as he shifts towards Harry across the bed, unconsciously seeking contact. 

Harry opens his arms and lets Eggsy tuck in against him and waits for the slow evening out of breath that means he’ll soon be properly awake; joking, talking about his plans for the day, complaining about his latest mission, letting the dog into the room, filling Harry’s life with so much noise and laughter. These moments just after dawn are the few beats of silence Harry gets these days and he hates it. He would much rather be talking with Eggsy, living with him and loving him, like he has done from the beginning. His bright, quick boy, confident now in his place at Kingsman and by Harry’s side.


End file.
